On This Day: FDA approves "the pill", providing greater reproductive freedom to American women - May 9, 1960
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FDA approves “the pill”
On May 9, 1960, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves the world’s first commercially produced birth-control pill—Enovid-10, made by the G.D. Searle Company of Chicago, Illinois.
Development of “the pill,” as it became popularly known, was initially commissioned by birth-control pioneer Margaret Sanger and funded by heiress Katherine McCormick. Sanger, who opened the first birth-control clinic in the United States in 1916, hoped to encourage the development of a more practical and effective alternative to contraceptives that were in use at the time.
In the early 1950s, Gregory Pincus, a biochemist at the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology, and John Rock, a gynecologist at Harvard Medical School, began work on a birth-control pill. Clinical tests of the pill, which used synthetic progesterone and estrogen to repress ovulation in women, were initiated in 1954. On May 9, 1960, the FDA approved the pill, granting greater reproductive freedom to American women.
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https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/fda-approves-the-pill
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How The Approval Of The Birth Control Pill 60 Years Ago Helped Change Lives
MAY 9, 2020
Ross, now 66, said by the time she came of age around 1970, the pill was giving young women more control over their fertility than previous generations had enjoyed.
"We could talk about having sex – not without consequences, because there were still STDs ... but at the same time, with more freedom than our foremothers had," Ross said. "So it changed the world."
For Pat Fishback, now 80 and living in Richmond, Va., the newly available pill allowed her to delay having children in her early 20s until she'd been married for a couple of years.
"It also made having children a positive experience," Fishback said. "Because we had actually, emotionally and intellectually, gotten to the point where we really desired to have children."
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https://www.npr.org/2020/05/09/852807455/how-the-approval-of-the-birth-control-pill-60-years-ago-helped-change-lives
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The FDA Approves the Pill
["Modern woman is at last free as a man"]
The famous journalist and playwright Clare Boothe Luce echoed the thoughts of many when she declared, "Modern woman is at last free as a man is free to dispose of her own body."
The FDA sat on the application, and months went by without any word. Safety wasn't the issue clogging up the review process. It was the revolutionary nature of the Pill itself. Oral contraceptives would be the first drugs whose purpose was not to cure a medical ailment. Instead, the Pill would be given to healthy women for long-term use for a social purpose, and the FDA was uncomfortable with the concept.
The agency was comfortable with short-term usage of Enovid for therapeutic purposes, but the reviewers were anxious about the safety of long-term usage for contraceptive purposes. Eventually, the FDA avoided the question of long-term safety by approving contraceptive usage of Enovid for no more than two years at a time.
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https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/pill-us-food-and-drug-administration-approves-pill/
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Celebrating the first-ever Free the Pill Day
MAY 2019 | STATEMENT
On May 9, 1960, the US Food and Drug Administration first approved the birth control pill, which helped give people the freedom to determine their own life path. Nearly 60 years later, it’s past time to make the pill truly accessible. The pill is safe and effective, but one in three women who have tried to get prescription birth control have faced obstacles. We need contraceptive options that better meet ALL of our needs. That includes a birth control pill that’s available over the counter (OTC), covered by insurance, and affordable and accessible to people of all ages.
Today, as part of the first-ever Free the Pill Day, we are calling attention to the barriers too many people still face in accessing the birth control pill and demonstrating the widespread support for bringing the pill over the counter in the United States.
People know what’s best for themselves, their bodies, and their futures. Everyone should have full control over their sexual and reproductive lives, and birth control is critical to making that happen.
[Fighting for the future]
“Freedom to access, freedom to control, freedom to thrive. That’s the future we’re fighting for.”
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https://www.ibisreproductivehealth.org/news/celebrating-first-ever-free-pill-day
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On This Day: Joan of Arc transcends gender roles at Orleans, gaining recognition as savior of France - May 8, 1429
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016377185
On This Day: Sinking of passenger ship Lusitania switches the position of many U.S. pro-Germany supporters - May 7, 1915
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016377157
On This Day: Pop. of Rome falls to 10,000 after sacking, atrocities, famine, plague, flight - May 6, 1527
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016377104
On This Day: 6 fatalities from Axis action in continental U.S. during WW2 - May 5, 1944
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016377037
On This Day: Tiananmen Square protests (not 1989) spur shift in Chinese history - May 4, 1919
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016376997
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